The one thing I've stooped to when on the road (and on the road I am, driving in search of the sun to hang/bike/etc. in Phoenix with Matt), is to stop at McDonald's. I'll admit, it's half fueled by the fact that they have started having free WiFi, and there's just something convenient about 700,000,000,000 McD's locations nationwide where there's internet access.
So it's with mixed emotions that I go in... I do love a synthetic milkshake every now and then, and it appears that the McRib is back. Again. But going away? What IS the deal with the McRib anyway? Apparently, it has only gone away 3 times so far. Perpetually to come back, like the alternating waves of pleasure, then nausea, it induces on its victims.
So it's with a growing sense of relief that I leave the... ahem... Great State of Missouri... with it's perpetual religious billboards (and apparently vibrant anti-porn/anti-highway-adult-bookstore movement) to trek across the dust bowl and beyond to the beloved desert. I'm sure the delight of smooth mouthfeel will pass like the miles, and that patented McDonald's Sense of Intestinal Unease™ will take up residence soon enough.
Got a new bike. Er, frame I mean. "...and why do you need another bike?" you ask. "dude... shut up" I say. Had parts around so I only had to buy a couple things - stem and brake levers, maybe some pedals in the future. Haven't exactly "finished" it - still intend to make it a fixed-gear, but need to decide on a hub. In the meanwhile it's a singlespeed that I took for a ride last night, and it's kind of fun. It's really quiet... kind of eery.
It's Burns Night tonight over at Andre's. Looking forward to it - not only was it fun last year, but it marks something of an anniversary. It was at that party a year ago where I met a lot of people that, in the time since, I've come to call good friends. There'll be haggis (veggie, but I hope someone makes some of the real stuff), Scotch (duh), and the poetry of Mr. Burns. Who doesn't love centuries-old scottish poetry that includes such chart-toppers as "Ode to a Haggis"? I'll be bringing some variations on Rita's Rum Cake (recipe below) - one traditional, and one fucked-with. As in, with different stuff in it - chocolate and cherries. And then there'll be the testers made with 12 year-old Isle of Islay Scotch instead of rum. We'll see how those turn out. I'm verrrry curious.
Bought a BOB trailer today from Ben. It's a Yak trailer, but I don't plan on taking it to the coffee shop like the dude in the BOBgear ad. (And I'm sure as hell not going to sip coffee out of a silly-shaped cup like that, either.) I was thinking something a little more blue-skies-and-scenic-vistas.
Ran the re-use/thrift/gauntlet today searching in vain for a proper pepper mill. One with a crank that sticks out. Not a knob that you twist - a crank that you spin. When I want to grind pepper into something I'm cooking, I want it now, and I want a bunch of it. And twist-twist-twist/squeeze-squeeze-squeeze isn't doing it for me. The Re-Use Center, which is right down the street from the PTO thrift store, which is right down the street from the Salvation Army store, poses a tough problem for folks like me that can find something to do with this, that, or another thing (or at least think we can). Everything seems like a good idea. But I know that I don't have room or follow-through enough for everything, so I restrained myself. Pretty wacky place, that Salvation Army. Huuuuge place. Tons of clothes, all seemingly in pretty good condition. Grey flannel suit for $8? Sure, why not. I realized my eyes were too big and my apartment too small, so I put shoes to pavement and left empty-handed.
Tomorrow's the Worst Day of the Year Ride, and we have some snow, so that's appropiate for the day. Monday is the Bike Ypsi meeting and the logo competition. Tuesday, I think I'll go to Arizona - Matt has an extra bedroom down at the proving grounds and extended the invite, so who am I to refuse a place to sleep and recreate where there's sunshine and shorts weather? And, I get to check in with the desert (howyadoin'?). Ride the bike a bit. Tromp around in the wild. Let the sun shine on in and have my skin make me some Vitamin D.
While the continuing list of not-bad-at-all things extends all the way down to the Rita's Rum Cake Recipe, in the meantime there's this surprisingly effective sitar rendition of a tune we all know and... uhm... well, we all know it, right?
Rum Cake 4 eggs 1 box yellow cake mix 1 pkg french vanilla instant pudding 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1/4 cup dark rum (maybe 1/3 or 1/2 cup if you want) 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
Rum Sauce 1/2 cup butter 1 cup sugar 1/4 cup water 1/4 (or 1/2) cup dark rum
Grease a bundt cake pan VERY well and sprinkle nuts into the bottom of the bundt cake pan. Mix the ingredients and pour over the nuts. Bake directly on the oven rack at 325 for 45 minutes.
Combine the ingredients for the rum sauce and bring to a boil. After the cake is done, pierce the top of it with a toothpick or fork or whatever you've got, and pour the sauce over the cake.
Important: Let sit for at least 2 hours before turning it out of the pan. Then call your cardiologist and make a reservation before tucking into this cake. Because you seriously just used 2 (or more if you're adventurous) sticks of butter (not margarine, you sissy) in this and will probably have a second piece of cake each time. What were you thinking? Ah, well it's good, isn't it?
No, seriously. I don't remember eating corn. But yesterday I looked down, and there it was. Today I look down, and there it is again. I must be sleep-eating or something.
There's those old sayings about making sausage - about how, like laws, you shouldn't learn what goes into it or how it's made. About how much less attractive it is the more you know about it.
Well, it seems I (metaphorically) don't agree. I mean, I know that politics and law are complicated and thorny bits, but the more I learn about my local government, the more intrigued I am. Lots of people get turned off the by the amount of bureaucracy and red tape that goes into even local government. I, for one, am ok with it.
It's easy to lean back on one's Libertarian Lounger or Republican Rocker or Democrat Davenport and snipe about the waste of time and energy and money that goes into government. Bound to special interests, lazy, corrupt, shallow, whatever you want to call them.
But here in Ann Arbor, I'm left with the overall feeling of a fairly well-run city. Sure, there's rough spots here and there, but that's the nature of compromise. And like the old saying goes: a decision that satisfies everyone's needs, but makes no one happy, is probably the fairest compromise possible.
No one gets exactly what they want, so everyone is unhappy in at least one way or the other. But that also likely means that it compromise serves the needs of the largest number of people.
Make no mistake - governing/government is a perpetual exercise in compromise (unless you live in a totalitarian dictatorship, incendiary criticism about the Bush administration ignored for now). It wasn't until recently that I saw the elbow grease/dirty fingernails of the workings of that at the Parks Advisory Commission meeting a couple weeks ago. The point of going was to show support for the Ann Arbor Skate Park, but watching the rest of the meeting was... interesting. It would seem that decisions made have reasons, and data to back them up (go figure!). Proposals in front of even modest groups like the Parks Advisory Commission still get bounced back when there's no data to support claims. There were multiple times I heard comments, criticism, discussion from commission members that showed that they did indeed have the interest of park users, taxpayers, and the future welfare of all of the city in mind.
Yes, I know... that's what they're supposed to do. I shouldn't be surprised when it happens. But still - it's nice to see that it actually happens in real life.
Well, not having had anything to rant about for a while, I guess I'm overdue. Today's topic of annoyance: morning TV culture.
I had the uhm... opportunity... today to sit in a waiting room while a friend went to to the doctor, and the waiting room TV had some apparently typical morning programming on. Regis and whoever, or Dr. Phil, or who knows what. I couldn't see it, just hear it, and I have to say that I was really kind of amazed at how much of it is essentially a full-length commercial. Commercials for other TV shows (with clips of the previous day's TV shows), promotion of fucked-up body image stereotypes, telling you who to trust and how to spend your money, accentuation of unnecessary anxieties. It's torturous. I don't know how people can watch it. And no, I'm not ranting from the high-and-mighty holier-than-thou perspective of the TV-free. I'm just reacting as someone who hasn't adopted this into their life. If it's not already something you do all the time, it is a weird-assed thing to see the constant performance of fake laughter.
Hours and hours of labor, millions of dollars worth of equipment to bounce a signal back and forth to satellites, all of it about... nothing. No wonder it's just one big ad.
The one thing I've stooped to when on the road (and on the road I am, driving in search of the sun to hang/bike/etc. in Phoenix with Matt), is to stop at McDonald's. I'll admit, it's half fueled by the fact that they have started having free WiFi, and there's just something convenient about 700,000,000,000 McD's locations nationwide where there's internet access.
